Hey Cab companies; go take a flying fuck. Every night after the bar I call you, tell you my name and where I am, and then your disgruntled dispatchers hang up on me mid-sentance as I ask how long I should expect to wait. On the oft chance you don’t hang up on me, your timing predictions are ALWAYS wrong. I have waited literally hours on Friday and Saturday nights after the bars. I could have flown to Toronto in the time it took you angry bastards to come get me. Seriously you are rude as shit. If after an hour of waiting and I’m tired and I resort to checking out the window every few minutes and you happen to come in between my checks and god forbid, YOU wait a minute, you act like a complete asshole when I get in your cab and threaten that you will drive away if I’m not standing ready to rush out the door next time. You bitch and moan about how awful it would be to have more cabs on the road well guess what? I don’t want to hear it. By keeping the number of cabs stupidly low you add to our city’s serious violence issue. How you ask? Guess what happens when it is 4am and all the drunk people want to get a cab home and only like 10 people can? People get pissed off and start fighting over cabs…I literally see this a few times a month. Congrats on being the Buzz Killington of Halifax’s good times.
This article appears in Apr 17-23, 2008.
Right on. Also:No cabs means I walk home across the Commons at 3 am.Why don’t cabs in this city turn their light off when they have picked up a fare?? That is the point of the light on the roof of the cab: light on means they are empty, light off means full. If the cab companies want to keep their lucrative licenses why doesn’t the city require them to have X number of cabs available at peak hours (when the bars close) and if this law already exists, why isn’t X a bigger number???
This is one of my biggest pet peeves about Halifax. I few months ago I read that there are only something like 160 cabs commissioned to work in Halifax? How is that exceptable at all? People try and make the responsible decision to take a cab home instead of driving their car after a night of drinking but can’t get a god damn cab. It’s not very responsible of city of Halifax to continue this. Then you hear the cabbies complaining that it’ll cut into their bottom line and they won’t make as much money during the night because of more cabs. Hey cab drivers; it’s call competition and it’s something every business has to deal with. Perhaps providing fast, efficient and friendly service would persuade people to call your company over another if this was the case.
After waiting an hour after the bar has closed, has anyone ever had a cabbie tell them that they wouldn’t take them home as it was ‘out of their district’? Fuck you! I’m paying you so you should take me where ever the fuck I want to go!
Yeah Cabs do really suck here in Halifax. The last time I was in T.O. I asked a cabbie there if I could get a copy of the “Rules For Driver and Rules for Passengers” display they have bolted onto the back of the front seats, but they wouldn’t say where I could get one…too bad I really liked some of the rulesexpectations laid out in that.
Its not just at night if its snowing or raining, times when people without cars might want a cab. Good luck even trying to get a cab company to answer the phone
Taxi around here are in very bad state of repair too. Some of the taxi cars should not be on the road. I know if my car was such a piece of shit the police would pull me over and issue a ticket or impound the car. Are there no regulations for Taxi cabs or are they just really lax?
And if you do manage to get one you end up super overcharged….particularly if you dare to ask them to drive you to the airport! the only method I’ve found to deal with this is to call multople cab companies- I know this sort of tactic is probably going to get me flamed on my first response, but at least that way, there’s a chance in hell one of them might actually show up….
The limitation on the number of taxis in HRM is the brainchild of greedy taxi drivers, proposed by a counsellor with personal interests and supported by the other members of council who can’t read and think for themselves. This limitation does a few things: 1. it creates a blackmarket that puts a $$$$$$$ value on a $50 permit, 2. it removes the fair competition and allows drivers to work banker’s hours so they aren’t there when the bars close which forces many more people to drink and drive, 3. it prevents the dispatch companies from enforcing clean car and dress regulations because if the drivers quit, they can’t be replaced due to the limitation. With this sytem drivers don’t have to work late at night when the bars close. Nor do they have to work in bad weather, etc. You know, all the times when people need a cab the most. Remove the limitation and drivers would have to work during these times to survive. HRM doesn’t want more cabs on the road because they are in the bus business. I have a solution, lets limit the number of vehicle permits in N.S. That would control the number of cars polluting the air and tearing up our roads and then we would all have a retirement plan. Sound ludicrous? Well that’s what council is allowing the cabbies to do. I say let the idiots pay for their own pension plan just like everyone else does. If they were smart enough to organize themselves and expend their energies on intellegent things, there are enough of them to probably have a decent medical and pension plan. But they would rather cry at City Hall until council agrees to let the rest of us pay for it. Give them some hefty competition to force them to clean up their act and provide an acceptable service. And, don’t be fooled into thinking they make no money. They may not claim what they are making but I know several who drive $35K Harleys. You pay the HST on the meter but if they claim less than $30K on their income tax they don’t remit it. Don’t blame the companies. They are equally as frustrated as you when they have 10,000 calls and only a hand full of cars willing to work. Put the blame where it belongs, on the cabbies themselves and the gutless counsellors.
My favorite is when you finally do get a cab (hoping it’s not a van, because those are an extra $7) they decide to take you around every block, to make you pay a fortune, rather then just going right to where they should…then proceed to -bitch- when you don’t tip.Well, Mr. Cabby, I just paid $13 for a far that should have been $6.